Pages

My Books

Saturday, April 30, 2011

5. How Long Should a First Novel Be? (Writing for Success)

Note: This is part 5 in a series of 25 articles from my upcoming 'Writing for Success' series (NEW: Buy the book HERE).

5. How Long Should a First Novel Be?
So what is it? 20,000, 40,000, 80,000 or 120,000? What is the correct length for a novel? This is a tough question and one that many new authors struggle with. In this article I will aim to give you some guidance on choosing the correct number of words you should be aiming for.

When you read novels do you look for books of a certain size? Is your favorite novel long, short, or somewhere in between? I ask this because, to a certain extent, the type of books you read influences the type of books you write. The second thing that will influence you will be genre. Are you writing Children’s, YA, Romance, Sci-Fi or a Thriller? Most genres have particular guidelines for novel lengths and you need to understand these before your book is finished. And I’ll state this again, you need to understand the length of books in a certain genre. If you write a novel that is totally different in length to a standard of the genre, then the chances of your novel being successful will all but disappear.

Pages in a book are made up of words and in the average paperback there are approximately 250 words to a page. Sometimes 300+ in a small-type book, but let’s go with 250. This means that for every 100 pages there are approximately 25,000 words. Children’s novels (Middle Grade and some YA) typically have between 25,000 and 40,000 words. An adult novel of this length would be considered short, but maybe on the edges of some pulp romance novels. Most novels set the minimum bar at about 60,000 words (about 240 pages), but Fantasy novels are well-known for 125,000+ word books.

But I don’t know how long my book will be, you say. While this is true to a certain extent, this in no excuse to not writing the book to be a certain length. It is up to you to ensure the plot has enough story points to enable you to write the required number of words. You’re really writing to a formula, something that has been laid down by many others before. Previously I wrote that each story point will probably be worth 400 to 500 words, so to write a 60,000 word novel you’re going to need somewhere near to 150 story points. And, as I’ve also written before, that’s a lot of story points. So, before you start writing your 125,000 word Fantasy novel in earnest, you’d better make sure you have those 250+ story points nearly complete!

Some authors will argue that a story should be as long as it needs to be, and who am I to disagree? However one thing that many of these authors are forgetting is that they are already published and established and they can decide to a certain extent just how long their books should be. As a debut author you do not get that luxury. Writing a book is all about good language and sticking to a formula. Why try and break the mould on your very first attempt?

As a first time or newly published author you don’t get a say in how long your book should be. What I mean by that is let’s suppose you’re writing Romance and your comparison books all run at 60,000 words. If your book is only 45,000 words long, that’s not going to be enough. Don’t even consider trying to get it published! Similarly, if you overrun and you suddenly have a 100,000 word book on your hands, edit out 40,000 words or so! The length of your novel is very important.

I currently write in two particular genres, comical Middle Grade adventures and YA Fantasy. Both of these genres require I write to certain word guidelines and in my case I try and produce books at approximately 35,000 and 125,000 words respectively.

Of course there are exceptions to all rules. JK Rowling doesn’t need to worry about the length of books she needs to write. Not now anyway. But if you look back to the first few books in her Harry Potter series you’ll see they were all at about the 75,000 to 80,000 word length. The last four books, however, were between 165,000 and 250,000 words! If and when you become famous, you get to decide how long your books are. Until that point, stick to the rules!

51 comments:

An interesting post. It was something I had to think about for my first YA fantasy novel. I try to have a rough idea in my head, but if I fall short by 5k or over by 5k it's fine. You have to be careful not to slow your narrative down, waffling in order to pad out the word count.

I'm missing part of the equation (not that writing is a science but your guidelines are useful) - how many story points in a chapter? One of each? More than one? Let me know. And thanks for your great advice especially on publishing.

@L.D. - The number of story points in a chapter depends on the length of the chapter. If each story point is about 500 words and a chapter is approx 2,000 words, then there are 4 story points to a chapter.

Word count is something I had no idea about when I wrote my debut novel, The Virgin Surgeon. I simply wrote it. Needless to say it has more words than your average Romance/Suspense/Thriller. But I think its well paced and readers have run through it in a day.

I think you make excellent points and word count is extremely important to first time authors looking for a "publishing deal". Pages costs money and more words make more pages, and publishing houses don't want to take a chance losing too much money on an unknown. I'm not so sure if word count matters to someone dead set on "self-publishing." I say that because as a reader, I breezed through the big Harry Potter books in a day or two. Great stories and excellently paced. Yet, I've struggled to get through books half the size that had dull stories that actually seemed more wordy than they really were.

My first novel is 120,000 words. I wrote as much as I needed to to tell the story I wanted to write. I signed a contract that required I write 100,000, and the first draft of my manuscript was 130,000. My editor took out 20,000 in her first edit, then put back 10,000 in her second. There was no way I could have told my story in any more or less words. Therefore I really think this is a bit of a red herring, and unnecessary advise. Just write what you want to write; what your story requires. And remember, if you want it translated into German, that adds about 30% more to the text. Free your mind, your ass will follow...

Thanks, Paul, there is a lot of good sense in your article but overall, I agree more with Greg's comments. It does depend on genre as you say, but personally I find the whole 'you're writing to a formula, number of 'storypoints' per chapter' etc a pretty depressing approach. Somebody said it's a numbers game, but it sounds more like writing by numbers. My first novel has come in at 107,000 words, not out of line for the genre (contemporary women's fiction)but I gave the wordcount little thought when writing. I can say that there is nothing left in that wouldn't create a hole in the story if I took it out. The more I think about it, the more I agree with Greg.

Wauw, what do I have to think about when I write a story! I actually did think about how long a book needs to be and as I write in the 'Romantic Historical' genre.I started out writing a book that became easily 700 pages and then decided to cut it in small pieces and launch books between 35.000- 80.000 words, because it seemed to me that my target group preferred that. That is how I started a series.I am not sure about 'story-points' I must have them as I try to make every page interesting enough to have people keep on reading. I've 'done away' with editors that seem to like to make a point about themselves in my books. That does not mean I don't have a very strict and stern corrector and I adore her for what she does to my writing. When reading your articles I sometimes have the sense of reading 'recipes', but all recipes in the world cannot give you the success many people crave. I believe in the adage that a good book sells itself. Does thatmean that bestsellers follow the recipes? I don't know. I just know that I write because I like to tell a good story. And thanks to Indiepublishing we can do just that now.

Yes, agreed, if your aim is sales and the widest audience possibly, follow the rules and stay within word count norms.

I'm one of those who doesn't care how long or short a book is when I'm looking at it. I care about the story and the writing, especially about the characters. I'll read a 200,000 word book with no issue if I like it enough. I'll also read a 40,000 word lit fic. Following that, I write what the story dictates. My shortest lit-romance is right at 70,000 words. My longest is 320,000 words (and part of a series).

Granted, I have much more trouble selling either of those than my mid-size books at around 120,000 words.

But my aim is to create fiction I think deserves to be read, even if within a smaller audience. And I publish myself so I can write within my own needs and my stories' needs. Of course if I was having to depend on it as an income source or looking for a publisher, I would have to rethink my strategy.

I'm 18 and writing a fantasy as my first novel. One of my 12th grade teachers said she'll take care of getting it to a publisher. I've made a general outline and it looks like it can be about 60000 or 70000 words. Too short?

Anonymous - The quick answer is that it depends on the genre. If you are writing Young Adult or Adult, then you're probably looking for at least 70-80 thousand. If you're writing for Middle Grade then even 60 thousand may be a little long. Try and write more than you need so that it's easier to cut unnecessary pieces out in the editing. Aim for 80-90 thousand and you'll probably do great. Just make sure you have enough plot points to carry the story. Good luck!

Great post.I'm a former high school English teacher and I have to laugh at some of the responses from these wannabe know-it-alls. Without constructed plot points and an outlined narrative story arc, I guarantee inexperienced writers will produce editing nightmares. A couple of the responses even had misspells which no real writer likes to make. It's called proofing.You might have mentioned that they cut their baby writer teeth on contests. The Writers Digest organization is a great place to start. Try winning against 1600-7000 other writers in any one category. I won 6th in the Inspirational category and was thrilled with my little check! I'm going for #1 this year!Thank you for trying to explain that there simply are no original plots and that there certainly ARE mechanics to building a "roller-coaster blockbuster."BTW: I was irritated by all the periods outside the quotation marks until I realized (realised) they must be Brits! We Yanks put our periods within...,,,Your reincarnation idea is good. I'm going to order that one. Hope you are still writing!!!

Hello im writing my first novel and the genre is thriller im guessing but is my book to short if my chapters have 15 paragraphs in it the paragraphs like 5 lines long and it will probably be like 40-50 chapters is that to long or short for an adult thriller novel?????

Depends on your method of publication. if you're going traditional, you may want to consider splitting it up. If you're self-pubbing, the choice is yours. Just bear in mind, 125k is a long book for most audiences in YA.

I've been leaning more towards traditional than self-publishing, so yeah it looks like I may have to either split it into two or cut a lot out. I suppose I'll worry more about that once I've finished the story and started editing, though.

If there are any other people on here willing to do some math, I'm writing a semi-realistic-fantasy novel (i.e., superpowers), and currently I'm estimating it to be between 15 and 20 chapters. My chapters generally range from 1,500 to 2,000, judging from past writing attempts… would this be enough for my genre, or a little too long?

I've recently posted on this as well - http://christianediting.co.nz/how-to-write-a-christian-novel-defining-your-genre-11/.

As a reader, I have expectations about how long a novel should be. I've been well-trained by the publishing industry to like books in the 85,000 - 90,000 range best, and while self-publishers aren't necessarily bound by the same word counts as traditional publishers, you are aiming for the same market as they are, so you need to meet the expectations of that market.

It depends on the word count. I have noticed that a page front and back=1 page typed (so if I wrote 300 pages it would be about 150 typed). But this all depends on your handwriting (size, style etc.) and sadly people will not be able to give you an exact number. If you wanted to take the time and count the words on a page and use that to take a guess and assume other pages will be about the same, then people could give you a better idea.

How best you are interested in writing a good essay matters a lot. You have to be ready to understand every basic requirement that there is touching on how you can write the most interesting essay of all the time like this buy essay

This information is very helpful for beginning writers. I am not such good at writing to write novels or something else so I always buy all my writing college works here http://fresh-essay.com to save my time for something I really interested in.

Starting to write a childrens book for the first time , I have always been told, i have a great imagination, and alwys wanted to do something great in my life . Anyways its a book for ages 7 -10 , a short novel, with maybe 40,000 words, Im basing it on my daughter as alittle girl her name is Victoria, but her nick name is Pic, Her characther name is Pictoria. Im trying to write as a fantasy / make believe . Any tips.

Read the book: "Punching Babies: a how-to guide" by Adron J. Smitley. It's a great book on how to structure your novel, as it covers the entire plotting process from beginning thru the end so you can properly structure your story and make sure not to miss any necessary plot points while still leaving all of the writing up to you. And it's not just for novelists but also for screenwriters! Ever since I bought it, my writing has increased ten-fold. It used to take me a year or more to pen a novel, and now it only takes me about 5-6 months from start to finish! I HIGHLY recommend Punching Babies (don;t let the title fool you, it's meant only to get your attentions for the vast info inside of it, lol). I bought it on Amazon for $12, and I'd gladly pay three times that now that i know how helpful it's been =-)

Hello! The author of this article is thinking about how long should a First Novel be) So, what is the correct length for a novel? Read this article and you will know the answer)And I have to go. I need to find online essay writing service , cause I have some problems with papers writing(

I am a twenty-one year old writing setting foot on the formidable avenue of writing his first (printed) novel. A year ago I published a 40,000 (approx.) word mystery novel on Kindle. After having modest success, I decided to write a YA/Sci-fi novel. To date, I am currently approaching the 60K word mark and still have around another 10K to write. In your professional opinion, do you think this is too short for a publisher to one day desire to buy the rights from me?

Greetings! Hope you are doing well. I think that first novel must be not big, because people must be interested in your next novel. And wait for it with passion. Thanks for sharing this great advices for new writers. I think it is very useful to know.

Hello! My friend and I have co-written a YA Commercial Fiction Novel (first of what we hope will be a trilogy). After reading this post, I've realized that our novel is way too long - with 47 chapters at an average of 15 pages each [ (15 x 47) (250) ] = 176,250 words! Even if there is a lot of white space, it still seems too long. I'm having a hard time editing out at least 76k words without losing some major points. Do you have any advice for me? Perhaps a strategic way to split the novel in half? Your expertise is much needed and appreciated! Thank you!

Academic life in most cases is difficult for students. The main reason is that students may experience a great number of problems and difficulties while preparing the necessary college tasks. In order to solve this problem all the students need is just to use this qualified writing service.

Remember, good essay writing services will never charge too much - their prices will always be just exactly as you need - fair and that not only reach could be afford them. Perfect essays online service reviews will guide you and help to find only the best essay writers and will charge you the fair price.

I am currently writing a romantic, twist drama novel, I love my plot and story but so concerned about the length. I don't won't to bore my readers with scenes or chapters that don't make up the completed story. I have completed 3 chapters which make up 10000 words, but only have 11 chapters planned for whole book, any suggestions please .Thank you

This is an interesting article. My book is going to be about 90,000 words long, with three main points in each chapter and at least 2,500 words in each, and I have planned out 36 chapters. For a YA science fiction fantasy that's a bit dysotopian is 90,000 words too short? BTW, this will be my first book and I plan on it being the first in a trilogy.

YTou are right that this is a tough question and not only athours struggle with it. If you want to have your essay or other type of college work written in a professioanl way, ask these essay writers to help you out. i am sure you will like what you get at the end.

I am almost finished with my paranormal fiction book. It has some romance but not a lot. I believe that when I am finished it will be around 60,000 to 62,000 words. Is that a good length for that category?

When an interesting story becomes too long, I throw it beside; there are many wonderful authors out there so why must I consecrete two days or more just on a story? A good story or writer for me is one capeble of telling the story in a flash.